The present invention relates to an inter-line fishing rod and, in particular, to an improvement for a fishing line guide disposed in the interior of an inter-line fishing rod.
In an inter-line fishing rod, generally, a fishing line guide is provided in a rod pipe in order to prevent a fishing line passing through the interior of the rod pipe from touching the inner surface of the rod pipe to increase its resistance. For this purpose, in some cases, as the fishing line guide, there is used a fishing line guide which is formed to continue spirally.
In a conventional method for uniting the spirally shaped fishing line guide with the main body of the rod pipe, a carbon fiber bundle or the like used as the material of the spirally shaped fishing line guide is wound around a core metal, a prepreg for forming the rod pipe main body is then wound around the core metal from above the previously wound, spirally shaped fishing line guide and, after then, the thus wound assembly is heated under pressure so that the rod pipe main body and the fishing line guide can be formed integrally with each other. However, if the fishing line guide is wound such that it is terminated at the intermediate position of the rod pipe main body prepreg in the longitudinal direction thereof, then the terminated portion of the spirally shaped fishing line guide is likely to be raised, with the result that the rod pipe main body prepreg to be wound on the raised fishing line guide is caused to meander easily, which in turn leads to the poor product or poor fishing rod. To avoid this inconvenience, a time and labor taking processing must be carried out to thereby prevent the terminated portion of the fishing line guide from being raised. Besides this, generally, the spirally shaped fishing line guide is disposed over the whole length of the rod pipe main body and is formed integrally with the rod pipe main body and, after then, the unnecessary portions of the spirally shaped fishing line guide are scraped off or removed by reaming or by a similar operation.
However, the thus scraped end portion of the fishing line guide sometimes shows a sharp-angle state and thus, if the fishing line gets caught in such sharp-angle portion, then there is a danger that the fishing line can be damaged. Also, even when the end portion does not show such sharp-angle state, the existence of the end portion causes the fishing line to be easily caught in it when the fishing line is inserted through the rod pipe, which interrupts the smooth insertion of the fishing line, thereby decreasing the meaning of provision of the spirally shaped fishing line guide.
In an inter-line fishing rod including a joint portion, the spirally shaped fishing line guide cannot be provided on a rod pipe inner surface situated outside a joint portion formed between front and rear rod pipes for joining reasons. Therefore, the spirally shaped fishing line guide must be terminated in the neighborhood of the joint portion or far apart from the joint portion.
Accordingly, it is an object of the invention to provide an inter-line fishing rod including a joint portion which, when a spirally shaped fishing line guide is disposed in the interior of a rod pipe joined outside, prevents a fishing line from getting caught in the terminated portion of the spirally shaped fishing line guide, thereby allowing the fishing line to be inserted smoothly through the fishing rod.
In an inter-line fishing rod, from the viewpoint of the durability of the fishing rod, it is preferable to form the fishing line guide integral with the rod pipe element when the latter is formed by heating, since if fishing line guide is formed separately from a rod pipe element such as a rod pipe and the like and the fishing line guide is thereafter bonded and fixed to the rod pipe element, then the bonded portion is easy to peel off when the fishing rod is flexed repeatedly in fishing.
Conventionally, there is known a method for forming a fishing line guide integral with a rod pipe element in which, for example, tape is wound around a core metal in such a manner that the side portions of the tape are superimposed on each other, a fishing line guide is disposed in the recessed portion of a stepped portion having a depth equal to the thickness of the tape, a prepreg for forming the rod pipe element is wound around the core metal from above the tape and fishing line guide, and they are heated together to thereby form the rod pipe element and fishing line guide simultaneously and integrally with each other. However, this forming method suffers from restrictions due to the fact that the height of the fishing line guide depends on the thickness of the tape used. Here, when a fishing line guide having a small height is used, it may be generally expected that, if a large number of fishing line guides are arranged and the space between them is set narrow, then the fishing line is prevented from touching the inner surface of the rod pipe to thereby be able to reduce the resistance of the fishing line.
However, since the fishing line resistance is substantially in proportion to a value obtained by multiplying the contact length of the fishing line in contact with one fishing line guide by the number of fishing line guides (that is, a value which can be obtained by adding together all of the contact lengths of the fishing line with the fishing line guides), in order to reduce the fishing line resistance as much as possible, it is not sufficient simply to prevent the fishing line from touching the inner surface of the rod pipe and it is necessary to improve the contour shape of the fishing line guide.
It is therefore another object of the invention to provide an inter-line fishing rod in which a plurality of fishing line guides are formed integral with the inner surface of a rod pipe main body or one or more rod pipe members to be inserted into the rod pipe main body, characterized in that the resistance of the fishing line can be reduced as much as possible.
In Japanese Patent Publication No. 4-341133 of Heisei, there is disclosed a fishing rod in which a fishing line guide ring is formed of a single fiber strip having a high wear resistance on the inside surface of a rod pipe main body in such a manner that the fishing line guide ring projects out inwardly of the inner peripheral surface of the rod pipe main body.
In the above-mentioned conventional fishing rod disclosed by '133 publication, however, if the fishing rod is flexed greatly because fish catches the hook thereof, then the flexed or deformed fishing rod causes the interface between the fishing line guide ring and rod pipe main body to peel off easily. Also, if fish is caught and thus a fishing line inserted inside the rod pipe is taken up and pulled in such a manner that the fishing line is in strong contact with the fishing line guide ring projecting inwardly of the rod pipe main body, then there is produced a force to pull the fishing line guide ring from the rod pipe main body to thereby cause the interface between them to peel off, which results in the possibility that the fishing line guide ring can be damaged or the rod pipe main body can be broken in and around the neighboring portions of the fishing line guide ring.
In view of the above, it is yet another object of the invention to provide a fishing rod in which a fishing line guide is strongly united with the inside surface of a rod pipe main body.
In Japanese Patent Publication No. 4-341133 of Heisei, as described above, there is disclosed an inter-line fishing rod in which a fishing line guide ring (a fishing line guide element) formed of a single fiber is formed integral with the inner peripheral surface of a rod pipe. Also, in Japanese Patent Publication No. 5-88259 of Heisei, there is disclosed a fishing rod in which resin tape is spirally wound around a core metal, prepreg forming a rod pipe is further wound around the core metal from above the resin tape, and a spirally projecting portion (a fishing line guide element) is formed integrally and simultaneously with a tubular element such as the rod pipe or the like by use of the present prepreg.
Generally, to form the guide element integral with the inner surface of the rod pipe, the prepreg is wound around the outside of the core metal and the thus produced assembly is heated while applying pressure to it by means of fastening tape. However, in the former '133 publication, due to the presence of the guide element, the fibers of the rod pipe in the axial direction thereof are caused to meander and the fluid flow of the resin of the prepreg becomes uneven; and, on the other hand, in the latter '259 publication, due to the existence of the resin tape, similarly, the fibers of the rod pipe in the axial direction thereof are caused to meander and the fluid flow of the resin of the prepreg becomes uneven. As a result of this, the strength of the rod pipe is lowered so that the rod pipe is easy to break.
Also, the guide element to be formed integral with the inner surface of the rod pipe has a great effect on the strength of the rod pipe when the rod pipe is flexed, and stresses are generated concentratedly in the rod pipe according to the shape, structure, material and the like of the guide element, which raises a possibility that the rod pipe can be broken during fishing. That is, it is found that the above-mentioned conventional rod pipes give insufficient consideration to the guide element and the neighboring portion of the guide element.
Accordingly, it is further another object of the invention to provide an inter-line fishing rod which prevents the lowering of the strength of a rod pipe including a guide element formed integrally with and projecting inwardly from the inside of the rod pipe and, in particular, prevents the lowering of the strength of the portion of the rod pipe in the neighborhood of the guide element.